STERLING, N.Y. – After nearly a year without concerts, Colloca Estate Winery has returned to a full slate of concerts.
Colloca, a vineyard that has a budget of $50,000 for live music, was unable to host concerts in 2020 due to COVID-19. This was incredibly difficult for its owner, Chris Colloca, who has had a strong attachment to music for much of his life.
“[Music] is my roots in Oswego. I grew up working at the local bars since I was in high school. I was 17 years old bouncing at Old City Hall and working at the Ferris Wheel, those were the places where I learned all the songs,” Colloca said. “I’m a classic rock fan, but I like a lot of different music … I love live music.”
While Colloca was unable to host big festivals or concerts in general in 2020, he continued to support small musicians in the area by bringing them in as dinner entertainment instead of the entire attraction.
“We had sit down dinners that were socially distanced,” Colloca said. “We would have musical performers play. It was really dinner with music, under our restaurant license we were allowed to do that.”
Because of the way Colloca Estate is designed, it was able to contort itself to not only survive but thrive during the pandemic. As a restaurant and part of the food and beverage sector, it was considered essential, thus it never really shut down early in the pandemic.
Before outdoor dining returned, the winery offered one food item and wines for take out. Colloca added that he sold 2,000 pounds of pizza dough in July 2020 and would often sell 200 of the single dinner item each day. When outdoor dining did return in 2020, the sheer size of the property allowed Colloca to serve a lot more guests than a traditional restaurant could.
“Because we are an outdoor venue in the summertime, we have 103 acres here,” Colloca said. “We went and purchased an additional 40 picnic tables and even more tables and spread everything out, did the social distancing and of course cooperated with the Cayuga County Health Department protocols for New York state.”
Due to the larger capacity and a booming wine industry during the pandemic as people began to drink more at home, Colloca said he saw growth of 60% for his business.
Colloca also planted a little over 13 additional acres, which is about 13,000 vines, doubling the size of the vineyard. The new vines will produce a harvest in three to four years and will yield an additional 6,000 cases of wine per year, including Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cab Franc and Pinot Gris.
To celebrate the expansion, the Colloca’s are planning a Six-Course “Summer Wine Pairing Dinner” prepared by Executive Chef Emil Nymander to be held on Thursday, September 2, at the Event Center. Tickets are available in the Tasting Room or online at www.colloca.com. Attendance is limited to jut 100 people.
The Winery’s Tasting Room, Wine Bar and Wood Fired Kitchen are open 7 days a week starting at noon. And, the Colloca Estate Ice Cream Bar is open from Wednesday to Sunday each week.
Despite this growth in business, Colloca lost nearly all of the live music for 2020. The winery itself hosts almost 200 concerts with five nights of music a week at the minimum, all of which were canceled due to COVID-19. This was a big loss for Colloca who finds much of his joy from music. His winery itself is even built with live performance in mind, as it boasts two different stages.
“What’s cool about the venue is we have a lot of space. We have the Lake Effect Vineyard Stage which is set among the vines,” Colloca said. “And then we have the Fair Haven Events Center … That’s really nice because we can have [one] end and then this begins at the same time.”
This summer Colloca has taken full advantage of his two stages with a myriad of concerts and festivals. On Sunday, August 22 and August 29, the estate will welcome two different tribute bands, the first performing music from Fleetwood Mac while the latter will see The Born to Run Tribute Band perform songs by Bruce Springsteen. After over a year of strange times, Colloca is grateful to have music back at his winery.
“I think anytime something is taken away from you, you don’t know how good you have it until it’s gone,” Colloca said. “The things we take for granted in this world are plentiful.”
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